


Commencement

by starfishofelves



Category: A Separate Peace
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishofelves/pseuds/starfishofelves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still, if I think back, I can remember the first time I met Finny, back when I still counted half-inches in my height, before I’d learned better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commencement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thistlerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/gifts).



Sometimes it’s hard to remember meeting Finny, in the same way that it’s hard to remember things from when you were very young. Everything before a certain point blurs and fades, until it seems strange to think that I had a life before him, before that Summer Session that was the apex our friendship, before the bitter winter that followed. It seems strange to think that I had any life at all before 1942, that I didn’t spring from the earth that year, a fully-formed sixteen.

Still, if I think back, I can remember the first time I saw Finny, back when I still counted half-inches in my height, before I’d learned better.

I’m sure we would have met up eventually. Our class at Devon was, after all, not particularly large, and by the time we were sixteen, boys of our age had come to be seen as something that was set apart. And of course there was the Super Suicide Society, which did all right for a while as a unifying force. Then again, maybe the Suicide Society wouldn’t have existed without both of us, the alchemy of Finny and me brought together. I don’t believe that. Finny would have found a way, with or without me. Maybe Devon was just unwilling to waste time, but for whatever reason, it brought us together by assignment.

When I went into my room, Finny was already there, almost as though he’d been waiting for me. He was lying flat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a look of perfect contentment on his face. When he heard me come in, he twisted his head over and grinned. “I guess you must be my roommate, nice to meet you.” There was honesty in his voice, like it really _was_ nice. “I’m Phineas. Well. Finny, really.”

I shoved my hands down into my pockets. I’d expected a handshake, some kind of formality. “Gene Forrester.”

He rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. “Where are you from?” Most people only asked questions like that to be polite, but I could tell that wasn’t the case with Finny. Small talk with him had a tone of perfect sincerity. He thought of it as a true way to get to know somebody, and he was always delighted to get to have that chance.

“Down South”, I said. “Near Texas.” This wasn’t entirely true. I wasn’t really from the Deep South, but in those days I liked pretending that I was.

“You mean you’re from Dixie?” I’d expected condescension, almost counted on it, but there was none in his voice and his eyes were bright. Finny loved places he hadn’t been, as purely and simply as he loved his own home. Maybe more – home could have flaws, after all. Unknown places, the ones that existed only in his mind, could be nothing less than perfect.

Dixie never existed anywhere else for Finny. I never invited him back to my house during a vacation or anything. I guess I was worried maybe he would’ve been disappointed, that nothing could ever really live up to the way Finny saw things. Maybe I just didn’t want him seeing though me. He sat up. “I live near Boston. Lived in New England all my life.“ There was pride in his voice, like he was glad to simply be able to count himself a part of a group, like New England was a greater place for him being there. I guess it was. “It gets awfully cold up here in the winter, I hope you’re up for it.”

I didn’t yet understand the misery of Northeastern winters, how the cold settled into your bones and the sky went so completely grey it was impossible to imagine it ever being anything else. “I brought things. Blankets and coats.”

Finny nodded, satisfied, and then moved on to the next important line of questioning. “You play sports?”

I shrugged. “Pretty well.”

The shrug must have bothered him. Sports were pure athleticism, pure joy, deserving of veneration and a sense of pride. In other people, at least. Finny himself never felt the need to gloat, being naturally possessed of a careless confidence that permeated everything he did. “Come on, I bet you’re even better than that. You don’t have to try and be modest with me. We’re roommates, after all.”

“I’m not trying to be anything,” I said. It wasn’t true and I knew it and was ashamed, so I spoke more sharply than I should have. Especially to Finny, who never expected cruelty from anyone. I’d spoiled the mood, and I regretted it as soon as I saw the look on his face, wide-eyed, taken aback and a little hurt.

Still, it’s wasn’t all my fault. He shouldn’t have been deciding things for me, shouldn’t have been expecting confidence to come so easily to everyone else. Finny never realized that he was special. He couldn’t understand that other people couldn’t live as freely as he did, no matter what he tried to do for them.

That was the first time I felt the short snap of resentment towards Finny and the guilt that came after. It would be a long time before I realized that I wanted, _needed_ to hear his opinions and his plans for me. We were both tense for a moment, and then I forced a smile. If Finny noticed the insincerity, he pretended not to. I wonder how many other things he pretended for my sake.

“I guess we ought to get going, then. We’re going to miss the orientation ceremonies.”

The talk of ceremony snapped Finny back into what I’d already seen to be his usual manner. “That’s no way to start your time here at Devon.” He said it like he’d been at Devon longer than I had, like he’d already had time to discover the school’s traditions – or, more likely, to invent his own and then slip them seamlessly into history. “They might come looking for us up here.” Always, there was a they. “Not if go out, though. We could go down and see the river. Our first act together as roommates.”

Our first act together as roommates was bound to earn us some kind of disciplinary action. I couldn’t imagine that we wouldn’t get caught. Finny could. In his mind, they were simply misunderstood. “They couldn’t fault us for that. That’s what they want, really, just for us to enjoy our time at Devon.”

I believed him then, trusted that any small adventure could wipe clean any lingering bad feeling, and when he stood up, I followed him.


End file.
